Erasure or empowerment?: how pre-service teachers address disability when using children’s literature

Abstract

Research suggests that in classrooms across the United States, teachers are hesitant to engage students in a discussion about disability. However, if children are not given opportunities to talk about disability, they run the risk of internalizing disability stereotypes or believing that discussing disability is not appropriate. In this paper, we use an explanatory, instrumental qualitative case study design to understand how 30 pre-service teachers (PSTs) notice and name disability when describing ideas for using children’s literature in the classroom. Additionally, we operationalize and build on Sapon-Shevin’s categorization of teachers’ responses to ableist behavior to examine the nuances of PST discussion. We found that most PSTs chose not to talk about disability or presented disability in a generic or potentially problematic way. This research provides necessary insight into the ways that teacher education programs can work with PSTs to effectively engage in disability discussion.

Keywords:

• Disability
• teacher education
• teacher training
• children’s literature
• ableism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We use Deaf (capital D) to signify Deafness as a cultural identity.

2 Borrowing from Gabel et al. (2016), we use the term “disabled” to reflect how individuals are disabled by barriers to full inclusion in society. Additionally, we draw on person-first (e.g. a person with intellectual disability) as well as identity-first language (e.g. a Deaf person) to reflect different identity preferences within the disability community.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christa S. Bialka

Christa S. Bialka is an associate professor of Special Education in the Department of Education and Counseling at Villanova University. Her research interests include understanding the development of teacher dispositions and disability awareness in K-12 and higher education.

Nicole Hansen

Nicole Hansen is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her research interests include mathematics learning, learning disabilities, and pre-service teacher education.

Sarah Jin Wong

Sarah Jin Wong is an assistant professor and director of Field Placement in the Department of Education at Bryn Athyn College. Her passion and research interests center on inclusive education, pre-service teacher education, and learner engagement.